


Camp Guh-Nuh-Kutya

by HostisHumaniGeneris



Category: Original Work
Genre: Crack, Gen, Serial Killers, Slasher Movie Tropes, Trick or Treat: Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-08-03 20:23:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16332848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HostisHumaniGeneris/pseuds/HostisHumaniGeneris
Summary: Cadey was running late for her first day as a volunteer counselor for the recently reopened summer camp.  And she wanted to be a good counselor so very, very badly.  Luckily someone picked her up off the side of the road...





	Camp Guh-Nuh-Kutya

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kisuru](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kisuru/gifts).



“Thanks for the ride.” Cadey said to the driver who had been nice enough to give her a lift after her car broke down. She had asked if he was going in the direction of Camp Guh-Nuh-Kutya, and when he gave a blank stare she added it used to be Camp Smiles twenty years ago... before the unpleasantness. Guh-Nuh-Kutya was a Native American word--she didn't quite remember the translation, only that the new camp was named using the dialect of the tribe... whose burial ground was dug up to make room for the camp in the fifties. "I swear to God, you're a lifesaver."

“No problem,” he said, staring at the road ahead, unblinking.  His lips curled back into a smile, showing off his rotten teeth.  “Dangerous ‘round these parts.  Can’t trust no one these days.”

“Really?  The whole town seems really friendly.” Cadey said. Except for the one old man at the general store who'd been ranting for her to stay away from that camp. It was really nice she got a lift, cell phone reception out here was terrible.

“Well, little miss, sometimes the people who want to hurt you the worst will pretend to help you, y’know?”

“That’s deep, sir.” She replied, nodding.  He just grinned and nodded, maybe muttering ‘deep cut’?  Sleep hut?  He was muttering something.  It was getting a little awkward, so Cadey asked “Mind if I turn on the radio?”

When he kept muttering, she leaned over and turned the dial, hearing static and more static until she caught the second half of Katy Perry’s ‘Roar’, at which point she started singing along.  The driver grunted, in disapproval and fumbled with cassette tapes—cassette tapes, this was such a nice, quaint town—finally settling on one.

She felt a little sheepish when it was some metal with the only discernable lyrics being ‘Breakin’ the law, breakin’ the law’.  Not that she expected him to have the same taste in music, but she was really sorry if she offended him by turning on the radio.  She voiced it, and he smiled and said “Nah, darlin’.  Ain’t nothin’.”

She kept conversing, with him just grunting in assent, until she saw the sign for the Camp, under new management and recently reopened.  When they blew past te turn-off, she meekly said “Um… you missed the turn.”

“I did?  Sorry darlin’.”  He didn’t stop the car as he turned and looked for something in the back seat.  Was he looking for a map?  Cadey had seen a lot of tools and ropes and newspaper clippings back there, but no map.  Cadey kept her eyes forward, and was in time to see the dark shape bolt from the side of the road.

Her yell of “Watch Out” was too late to be effective, and the beat-up pickup she had hitched a ride from slammed into the shape.  The driver swore loudly, asking if she saw what it was.  It was big, but things happened so fast.  Cadey threw her door open and got out.  “Ohgod, was that a deer?”

She still cried at _Bambi_.

She ran to the front of the car and crouched, seeing the dent the thing had put into the front bumper of the man’s truck, and then the trail of something glowing and green leading from the road to the forest.  “Is that glowstick stuff?”

She sprang to her feet and wheeled around.  She was going to be so late, and she couldn’t let that happen.  She was a volunteer counselor at the newly reopened camp, and she needed to make a good impression.  Slinging her duffel over her shoulder she started hiking, apologizing profusely to the driver for everything.  In the brief moment she looked at him before pushing forward, she noted that he was holding a crowbar—maybe whatever they hit had damaged the car more than she thought.

It must’ve, because the driver just started swearing really, really loudly.  Guys like that put a lot of work into their cars, kept them going for ages.  Despite the rusty stains on the floormat and the cargo space, the “old gal” probably had great sentimental value to him.

It was rude but she didn’t look back and picked up the pace.  She’d be late.  And if nothing else, he had calmed down apparently, his obscenities ending abruptly.

* * *

Cadey was fighting off sleep, and doing it poorly.  It was a bad habit of hers she needed to break, she had to wake up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed to greet the campers, but she always fought it.  The first few days had been very good, they did a lot of running around, setting up tents, scrubbing the old buildings clean and doing some fixes that needed to be done.  She was running around so much she almost forgot to mention her car, and the nice man she had hitchhiked in with. The tow company said they got her car, and apparently the man she came in with must've given up and walked to wherever he was going because it was abandoned too.

Work at the camp was a constant pace.  Some of the other counselors must’ve bailed early—they couldn’t hack it and just went walkabout, not even leaving a note or saying goodbye.  Cadey was sure they’d be back to collect their belongings eventually.  That left more work for her to do, but she did it the best she could.  Devin, the senior volunteer counselor, had noticed her efforts to do good.  She didn’t like throwing stones, but she wans’t getting high and slacking off like Lucy or Bev—she had absolutely no problem with their recreational hobbies, but they were already understaffed, so any more slacking  hurt worse.

It didn’t really shock her when Bev bailed, too.  She had been tasked with making sure all the canoes were ready for the campers by just going a little from shore; maybe not even a full six-feet deep, but they found one of the canoes adrift in the middle of the lake, Bev nowhere to be found.

Still, Cadey reminded herself that it didn’t matter if Bev couldn’t hack it.  She could do it.  She would do it. 

“You’re really into this.” Devin had taken her aside earlier that day, smiling that perfect smile.  “Do a lot of camping when you were younger?”

She shook her head at that.  “No, I never really had the opportunity; my parents couldn’t really afford it growing up.  I guess this is my first time at summer camp, and I want it to be good.”

That was then, now, she was just fiddling with the odd puzzle she’d found in the fireplace in one of the cabins; it had been covered in ash, but even a thorough rinsing off did little. It was a black box, but for some reason fiddling with it was thrilling. 

Thrilling became interesting.

Interesting became a thing to do.

A thing to do became boring.

The box was definitely some sort of puzzle, but it was one she didn’t have the patience to solve.  She didn’t get mad with them, she just couldn’t keep from getting board and setting things like that down—she was really good at crosswords though.  Mostly. 

She just remembered setting the puzzle box on her nightstand when sleep finally crept too close.  When she woke up, someone had to have taken it.  That was rude, but she couldn’t imagine who it was; Davey had been rude bordering on downright cruel to her and all the other counselors, but he left when he was tasked with splitting some wood.

Him running off wasn’t something Cadey minded, but taking the good ax from the toolshed with him when he left was.  Couldn’t’ they respect other people’s property?

* * *

“And then… his cousin came for revenge!” Devin said, taking a swig of his beer.  Cadey abstained, she was underage—not that she thought she could get away with it, but drunk counselors did entail a significant liability for the camp.  Like in that story—that poor little boy.

“Wow, I can’t believe that was the slayings.” Cadey said, riveted.  The story was so tragic and Cadey wished she had a Wi-Fi signal to cross-reference it.   She believed Devin, of course, but she had the bad habit of finding out about a thing, then looking it up and seeing other people’s thoughts.  

“Wasn’t the Massacre.” Julio corrected.  “You see, the boy’s cousin died the night she did all the killings, the last counselor managing to stab her.  Then her cousin came back, for revenge!”

“Wait… waitwaitwait.” On one hand, it was embarrassing to ask for clarification for a story that the the various drunk or high people could easily follow, but she was confused.  “When you say ‘her cousin’, do you mean the boy from the lawn dart incident?  Because if so… I wouldn’t’ think the cousin would seek revenge I her cousin was okay, unless it was some other cousin, and this is turning into ‘Who’s on First’ so I’ll just drop it!”

“Buncha hillbilly’s, probably everyone around town is someone’s cousin.  Family tree here has no branches.” Lucy said, giggling.  Cadey opened her mouth to say that small-town America really didn’t deserve the sort of crude stereotypes any more than any other group, then shut it because she remembered Lucy’s rant yesterday about the Welsh. 

It was just too awkward and upsetting for her to bring up.

“Miss Cadey…” A tiny voice broke out.  The entire came wheeled around to see Jill, standing their in her PJ’s.  “…I saw him again.”

“Oh, Jilly.” Cadey said, getting up from the log and dropping to a knee in front of the child.  She could _feel_ the dismissive sneer Lucy probably had on her face.  “There’s nobody out there… it’s just all those ghost stories people tell about the camp.  Was Jim keeping you up with the stories again?”

Cadey had a lot of fun with the kids, and consequentially, they had a lot of fun with her; she knew all the local animals and plants, and had spent the month before thinking of all sorts of arts and crafts things to teach them.  

Their little imaginations got carried away.  The lady in the lake was one—she was surprised that kids were still learning the local legend about the 19th-century heiress who drowned herself when her betrothed ran off with another.  The tree ghost was another, lurking in the trees and saying things in their voices back at them.  The tall man was another.

She had to admit, all their talks were starting to make her nervous, too.  Like, she almost thought she saw someone standing by the mess hall with an axe—almost thought it was Davey playing a prank, but the man was way too big and muscular.  She turned to look at the main office, and the man was gone.  Investigating, she saw some clothes billowing on a line.  Must’ve just been that, and her mind filled in blanks that weren’t really there.

“I’ll be right back” Cadey said as she took Jill by the hand and led her back to the cabins.  Devin flashed that smile, Lucy gave a snide ‘see you soon’, a few others raised bottles and nodded. When she got to the cabin, Jill laid in her bed and covered up tightly. 

“Miss Cadey?” The little girl said.  “I’m scared.  What if the monsters come for me?”

“Oh Jilly, you don’t have to worry about that.  I’m not going to let any mean old monsters get you.”  She smiled disarmingly.  She wondered if it was a mistake for her to not include the demonstrations on hand-to-hand combat and improvised weapons-crafting she’d picked up from her crazier family members—those were fun, but not really practical.  And the parents would probably complain about it.  Ah well, she’d think about it for next year, maybe.

When she got back to the counselor’s camp fire, nobody was around, just the fire, slowly burning down.  Jill sighed at the discarded beer bottles—some were even mostly full—and overturned lawn chairs, and _nobody put the fire out_.  They were camp counselors!  They were supposed to teach the kids to be responsible.

Cadey sighed and shrugged as she got to work cleaning up the mess.  Even if nobody else helped, she could do it.  She wanted to be a good counselor really and truly.  And she’d done a good job so far, she thought.

Yeah, she thought, neatly arranging the Adirondack chairs after pouring water—they had the buckets right there and didn’t use them, urgh—on the fire.  She was a good counselor.

She could definitely hack it here.

**Author's Note:**

> I just love horror movie clichés. So very, very much. Hopefully the whole conceit of _several_ horror movies going around while she just ignores it and goes about being the best counselor she could be amused you.


End file.
